On this date in 1773, Eva Faschaunerin was beheaded for the arsenic murder of her husband Jakob Kary, mere weeks after their 1770 marriage.

Faschaunerin (English Wikipedia entry | German), who was interrogated on the rack, is distinguished as the last victim in the Austrian empire of official judicial torture: the practice was abolished in 1776 by Maria Theresa.

She’s still well-known in her locale, the Alpine Lieser-Maltatal region and even further afield than that; the town of Gmünd has an Eva Faschaunerin museum in its former jail.

On this day..

• 1801: Hyacinth Moise, Haitian Revolution general
• 1716: Maria of Curacao, slave rebel
• 1641: Maren Splids, Jutland witch
• 1940: Julian Zugazagoitia, Minister of the Interior to republican Spain
• 1945: Charles Ford Silliman, suicide pact?
• 2011: Luo Yaping, "land granny"
• 1942: Eddie Leonski, the Brownout Strangler
• 1848: Robert Blum, German democrat
• 1842: Stephen Brennan, desperate bushranger
• Themed Set: Bushrangers
• 1610: Blessed George Napier
• 1944: Georges Suarez, collaborationist editor
• 2008: The Bali Bombers
• 1911: Charles Justice